No Prince Charming
by mascaret
Summary: The evening after Rose's tea for the Russian refugees, Cora and Robert discuss his reaction to Miss Bunting, his lack of reaction to Prince Kuragin, and his parents amongst other things. Violet heavy.
1. Chapter 1

A/N Because Robert took that revelation far too well.

Written before season 6 so any spoilers for season six are just a happy coincidence.

I never did find anyone to look this over and give me their thoughts on it so if anyone is interested send me a private message.

 _No Prince Charming_

Cora looked up as Robert entered their bedroom book in hand. She waited for Baxter to leave before starting a conversation.

"You took that rather well. Certainly better than I _ever_ thought you would."

Robert rolled his eyes. "Miss Bunting -"

Cora interrupted him. "-You know perfectly well I'm not talking about Sarah Bunting because you haven't taken anything to do with Miss Bunting well."

Cora gazed at her husband sympathetically. "I miss Sybil too but we have to accept that eventually Tom is going to move on."

Robert huffed. "I realize that he is going to move on, but _must_ it be with that awful, _awful_ woman?"

"She's pretty. She's -"

Robert turned his head as if that alone would block out her words, but Cora went on. "- intelligent. She speaks her mind. She challenges Tom and you. She -"

Realizing where she was headed, Robert refused to be brought along. "- She is nothing like our Sybil! How can he even think of replacing our Sybil with that woman!?"

"Oh Robert! He's not replacing Sybil. He's trying to find a place for himself."

Leaving her dressing table to go sit beside him on the bed, Cora reached a hand out to her sullen looking husband. "Tom is in an awkward, in between place living here. Behaving like that isn't making life easier on him. If you keep it up you will push him away and we will lose Sybbie. You don't want that! None of us want that."

Trying to lighten the conversation, she added. "Do we Donk?"

"No." Robert agreed. Her use of Sybbie's name for him had worked. It had brought a reluctant smile to his face.

"I have started to have a great deal more empathy for poor Shrimpie than I did as a child."

Cora laughed. "Are you planning to read?"

"For a few minutes - if it won't disturb you. It's a mystery and I'm down to the last chapter."

"It won't disturb me as long as you don't tell me what happens. I am planning to read it as soon as you finish."

But once they were both settled in bed, Cora couldn't resist bringing their conversation back to her originally intended topic. "When I said you took that better than I ever expected you would, I was referring to your mother's Prince Charming."

Sounding slightly perturbed at her again attempting the topic, Robert kept his eyes on his book. "Cora, I've known my mother has had lovers since I was eleven years old."

Cora's smile faded. "Eleven. That's very specific."

Robert held on to his book determinedly.

Her good humor evaporating, Cora pointed out. "It sounds _too_ specific to have been a gradual realization."

With a sigh, he let his gaze stray from the book. "My uncle had invited me to join him and my cousin, James, for a boy's week - learning to shoot and fish. Originally -"

Cora interrupted. "- I thought your parents didn't speak to your uncle?"

"Mama didn't. Papa, well that came after."

Confused, Cora frowned.

"Originally the whole family had been invited but Mama didn't care to go because she disliked my uncle and his wife. Papa didn't care to go because he disliked - " Robert stopped himself. "- because he already knew how to shoot and fish."

Cora had always found Cousin James and his father to be pleasant enough, but she could understand her mother-in-law's dislike of their wives. The way that those two had rejoiced in the birth of each of Cora's daughters and their solicitousness every time Robert as much as a sneezed, it was small wonder Mama used to refer to them as the Ladies Macbeth.

"A few days in Papa showed up."

Cora felt an unsettling fluttering in her stomach listening to her husband.

"While I was away Mama had planned to take Rosamund to London to meet up with Aunt Lily and Cousin Susan for a few days of shopping before going on to Aunt Lily's for a stay. Papa told me that they had made it as far as London before Mama took ill. Mama sent Rosamund on ahead with Aunt Lily, but she decided to stay at the London House for a few days to recuperate before rejoining them."

Robert's lips turned down. "Papa said he wanted to _surprise_ Mama.

Cora cringed in anticipation.

"The London House was closed up when we got there. There was no London Housekeeper, no maids, not even as much as a hallboy to greet us. Papa didn't ring the bell. He used a set of keys to open the front door to get in. He told me to go upstairs to Mama's rooms."

Cora's hand went to her mouth and she gasped at his next words.

"He said _not_ to knock so as not to disturb her if she was sleeping."

"You walked in on your mother with another man?!"

"No." Robert was quick to deny it. "I may have been only eleven but I was old enough to know to be suspicious when my father pretended to be kind to me. I knocked and called out softly so Mama would hear, but Papa who was waiting at the bottom of the stairs would not.

"Mama came out of one of the other bedrooms wearing just her shift and a dressing gown. She brought me downstairs. She was terribly upset, but she was trying so hard not to show it. Not to cry."

Cora reached out to touch his hand. Her heart went out to the little boy she could still hear in the slight wobble in her husband's voice as he talked of watching his mother try not to cry.

"Papa had disappeared. It was one thing to _make_ her cry, but it was another matter entirely to remain to see it. Despicable as he could be, he never had the resolve for that."

Cora marveled listening to her husband place the blame entirely for what he had witnessed on his father.

"I didn't let on that I knew anything. I didn't say anything about having heard a man's voice or Mama's laughter. I just pretended that I thought she wasn't dressed in the middle of the afternoon because she was ill as Papa had said."

Cora was grateful her and her husband had never had that kind of a marriage, but even if they had, she couldn't imagine deliberately involving their children in their conflict in such a way.

"Once we _found_ the kitchens she tried to make tea. She didn't know how to fill the tea kettle. Or what proportion of leaves to water to use – not that it mattered because she couldn't get the stove to light.

"We heard the front door close. Twice. Papa never reappeared. We went on to Aunt Lily's to join Rosamund for the week. We stayed for the whole week. I believe that was the _only_ time Mama ever made it through a whole planned visit with her sister."

Lady Grantham's relationship with her late sister made Mary and Edith look like bosom buddies.

When Robert didn't go on, Cora waited. When he tried to turn his attention back to his book, she prompted him. "And?"

Looking back up from his book, he feigned – surely he was feigning – confusion. "And what?"

 _tbc_

A/N Reviews would be greatly appreciated.


	2. Chapter 2

_No Prince Charming_

 _Chapter 2_

When Robert tried to turn his attention back to his book, Cora prompted him. "And?"

Looking back up from his book, he feigned – surely he was feigning – confusion. "And what?"

Talk about getting to the last chapter of a mystery and being left wondering. Slightly exasperated, with bated breath, Cora practically demanded. _"And then what happened?_ You foiled your father's plan. Did he feel that he had made his point and let it go? Or did he do something else? More importantly - _how did your mother retaliate?"_

 _"Oh."_ Robert spoke disinterestedly. "Papa had crossed a line. Mama refused to engage."

"Mama took the high road?" An incredulous Cora asked.

"Yes. She didn't as you say _retaliate_. She just stopped speaking to Papa."

Cora wasn't sure that qualified as not retaliating.

" _Literally._ " Robert stressed. "She didn't speak to him for more than a year. When the London season came round we didn't go. It was just the two of them and she wouldn't speak to him. She wouldn't even look at him."

It sounded childish, but Cora couldn't imagine a more effective method of torture for use on her father-in-law. Cora couldn't even begin to fathom how Robert's father would have acted out in an attempt to force a reaction from his wife.

"That must have driven your father absolutely mad."

"Cora, _everything_ about my mother drove my father absolutely mad."

Cora tried to imagine what the appropriate reparations would be for either side, for either offense – Robert's mother for the affair. His father for revealing it – or attempting to reveal it to one of their children. Failing, she asked. "How did it get resolved?"

Knowing that Robert's parents could both be impossible, Cora asked. "Who yielded first?"

Looking uncomfortable, Robert shrugged and attempted to dismiss the question. "Who knows? One day everything was just back to normal or what passed for normal here when Rosamund and I were children."

Her disbelief evident, Cora stared at her husband. Robert had always been and would always be a mama's boy. Her father-in-law had warned Cora of that before she had married him. "Your mother's retribution was that severe?"

Robert sighed and relented. "Mama never yielded first. Papa always had to be the one to give in. He could never win. Mama held all the cards."

"He absolutely adored your mother."

"And at the best of times Mama tolerated him."

The Dowager Countess had been at times somewhat indifferent towards her own husband.

Papa had always excused it by saying his wife was very aware that nothing was as alluring in a lady as her complete and utter indifference towards you.

Treating it almost as a game, he put up quite well with his wife's disregard ... except for those times when he didn't.

Robert felt the need to defend his mother even from his own words. "He wasn't an easy man to live with."

Her curiosity getting the better of her, Cora persisted. "What did your mother do?"

Robert took a moment to come up with an answer. "When for a second year we again weren't going to London for the season, she made a very thinly veiled pass at my uncle."

"Your uncle Patrick?!" Cora exclaimed. That part of the family had gone Patrick, James, Patrick. If not for the Titanic, Mary's son would have likely been a James instead of a George. "I thought your mother despised your uncle Patrick?"

"She did. I suppose at that moment, she despised my father even more."

Cora knew her husband. She knew he wasn't being entirely – if at all – truthful. He had taken too long before settling on an answer and that response was too measured, too meager. It was almost proportional which wasn't the way his parent's scorched earth method of escalation worked.

"My father came to the realization that sometimes the devil you don't know is better than the devil you know. We went to London for the season. C'est la vie until the next round."

Cora didn't believe him.

Whatever Mama had done, it must have been _truly_ egregious for her mama's boy of a husband to refuse to reveal it. But she had already pressed him once. She wouldn't continue to press him on it.

Robert surprised her by bringing up another figure from the past.

"I despised Richard Carlisle from the moment I met him. Whenever he walked into the room I would get this awful weight in my tummy. Even just the mention of his name would give me such a feeling of dread. It took me weeks to realize why that was. He reminded me of my father."

Robert frowned. "I was _terrified_ for Mary when I saw the announcement that she was engaged to him.

Robert shook his head. "I didn't want that kind of a life for my mother and I certainly wouldn't want it for my daughter. Married off to a man who would threaten her with ruin? No, I would have greatly preferred to just live with the Pamuk incident."

Robert had taken the news of Pamuk better than Cora had – but of course, he hadn't been woken in the middle of the night and asked to carry the dead Turk.

"But at least with Mary it was her _own_ undoing, her _own_ scandal."

Cora may not have always had the best of relationships with her mother-in-law but even she couldn't argue with that.

Robert's voice lost it's edge of outrage. "I was so thankful for Matthew.

Cora agreed. "Thank God for Matthew."

"I would have preferred Mary married to Stark over Sir Richard."

Cora smiled slightly at the unlikelihood of that. After Tom, Robert had learned his lesson. No more handsome, charming, young chauffeurs for the Crawley girls.

The outrage crept back into his voice. "For such a usually astute and intelligent man, he really missed the mark that time. Did he really think that if he just got her to marry him that everything that came before, that _the way_ he went about it would just be forgotten? Forgiven? That he would be given a clean slate? Clearly, he didn't know her _at all_ if he thought that would happen!"

Thinking back, Cora agreed sadly. "Clearly."

What a debacle it would have been had Mary gone through with her engagement to Sir Richard. Cora opened her mouth to say as much but Robert spoke first.

"Mama would _never_ let herself be bested in that way."

Cora faltered.

 _tbc_


	3. Chapter 3

_No Prince Charming_

 _Chapter 3_

"He would try _so_ hard sometimes - Papa would. He would go through these long stretches where he would try to do _everything_ he could think of to _make_ her love him, but Mama was too clever to fall for that. I sometimes think it must have driven him _absolutely_ mad loving Mama as he did, _knowing_ that she _never_ loved him. But how could she? The man was a monster."

With a sigh, she said his name. "Robert!"

Robert insisted. "He was, Cora. He was an absolute beast!"

Robert questioned her. "Do you know how the tradition of Mama's roses always winning the Grantham Cup started?"

Her lips turned down, but Cora said nothing. He started to tell her.

"When Mama was first brought to Downton, Mama greatly admired Mr. Moseley's roses. She wanted to know more about his growing methods so that she could attempt to replicate his results with her own roses when it was time for her to be sent back home. She and Mr. Moseley became quite friendly."

Of course Cora already knew that Mama had never made it back to her own roses. She already knew all of this.

"After the wedding, knowing Mama preferred Mr. Moseley's roses to the ones here at Downton, Papa being Papa decided to give them to her."

Robert's harsh tone didn't at all match with what to Cora had always seemed a thoughtful gesture. "You make it sound like a terrible thing."

"It was - _if_ you were Mr. Moseley."

Again Cora said nothing so Robert began to explain.

"Mr. Moseley wasn't one of Papa's tenants, but he didn't own his property outright. Papa bought the note for Mr. Moseley's cottage. He called it in. He had poor Moseley served with a thirty day notice to pay in full or be evicted.

"Mr. Moseley didn't realize at that point that Mama knew nothing about it so when they ran into each other in the village, he was rude to her. He snubbed her.

"When the gossip of what Papa was doing finally got back to Mama, she took money from the dower Papa had given her and using an intermediary, she had it sent to Mr. Moseley."

Cora resisted the urge to roll her eyes. _That_ was Robert's mother in a nutshell – both of his parents really. One was always trying to undo whatever the other one tried to do.

Only one thing did surprise Cora. "Your mother told you this?"

"No." Robert looked at her like she was ridiculous. "Of course not. Mr. Moseley told me."

"Mr. Moseley told you?" Cora repeated his words in disbelief.

"When their middleman passed, Mr. Moseley didn't want to approach my mother directly, but he isn't a man who doesn't pay his debts. He still had a few payments left to make Naturally, I wasn't just going to accept his money – not without knowing why he was trying to give it to me."

"Why would he come to you?" As far as Cora was concerned, Mr. Moseley had absolutely no business telling Robert that story. "Why wouldn't he just send the money to your mother?"

"Because Mama gave it anonymously. Mr. Moseley wasn't intended to know that the money was from her, but Mr. Moseley is an intelligent man. There weren't many people in the village able to lay their hands on that kind of money in thirty days time – and even fewer willing to cross my father. I'm sure it didn't take him long to figure it out."

Cora frowned. If it hadn't taken Mr. Moseley long, it wouldn't have taken Robert's father any time at all.

"Papa would have found some other way to get Mr. Moseley's roses for Mama, but Mama began to claim to find the roses already at Downton preferable to Mr. Moseley's. Papa suggested using the flower show to decide once and for all which were better. He even donated the cup."

"I still think it was a sweet gesture. Not for Mr. Moseley of course, but it was a kind overture by your father towards your mother. She was fond of Mr. Moseley's roses. They were newly married. Your father was trying to make her -"

Robert snapped at her. "- Please! Don't _play_ naive, Cora. It had nothing to do with pleasing her."

Cora had to admit, the gesture would have been a bit ham-fisted for her late father-in-law.

"Papa wasn't happy with her friendship with Mr. Moseley."

Now which of them was being ridiculous. "Robert, your father was only being sensible! It's one thing to be _friendly_ with the villagers, but she couldn't be _friends_ with Mr. Moseley – not as Countess."

Letting Robert's ludicrousness get the better of her, Cora continued. "It was _already_ inappropriate enough when your mother was the relation of the girl people expected to be the Lord Downton's bride, but heaven knows _every_ family seems to have at least one fairly eccentric character! But it couldn't _keep_ going on - not if _she_ was going to be Countess!"

Cora adored her husband, but at times he could be so exasperating! "What was she going to do? Have him to the house for luncheon with the Mertons and the Strallans? And she certainly could _not_ continue stopping by his cottage to visit with him and his roses!"

Robert wouldn't listen.

"She couldn't even stop to admire a few pretty flowers because of my ogre of a father. Papa wasn't happy with her paying attention to anyone or anything other than him - including – no _especially_ her own children."

Robert continued his rant. "You heard Prince Kuragin. He gave Mama a beautiful fan in a stifling hot room and Mama's first instinct was to hide it in her bag so Papa wouldn't see it and get angry."

He said it again. "The man was a monster! How could he have ever dared to even hope that she would love him?!"

 _tbc_

A/N Yea? Nay? Meh?


	4. Chapter 4

A/N Still hoping to find someone to read some of the later parts and give their opinion before I post those parts. Let me know if there are any takers.

 _No Prince Charming_

 _Chapter 4_

Robert said it again. "The man was a monster! How could he have ever dared to even hope that she would love him?!"

"Robert, thirty years is a long time to spend with someone and keep despising them – _even_ for your mother." Cora pointed out.

"No. It's not." Robert shook his head. "Not when that man was my father."

Flailing, Cora again tried to use humor to lighten the mood. "It only took Mama twenty years to warm to me."

"That's not true, Cora! After Mary was born she stopped referring to you as 'that ninny that my son married' and when Sybil was born she let you start calling her Mama instead of Lady Grantham."

Edith's arrival hadn't provided Cora with any measurable progress. Mary's birth had been greeted with such fanfare. Her christening had been better attended than some society weddings, but poor Edith's had had to be a private family affair. Theprecedent of their middle daughter always being overlooked had begun almost at birth. Robert's father had died within weeks of Edith's arrival sending the family into a period of mourning.

"I don't believe Papa ever got past Lady Grantham."

Not entirely clear if Robert was being facetious, Cora didn't offer a response.

"She would try at times. She could pretend for short bursts, but she _never_ loved him. How could she? The man was a monster. I told you how they came to be married."

At dinner a few days before the wedding, picking up on the fact that Lady Grantham never addressed her husband by name, only by title, Cora's mother – ever the pot stirrer – asked Robert's parents how the two 'lovebirds' had met.

Neither of Robert's parents had answered.

Robert had.

Having already heard a much more storybook appropriate rendition from Robert's father, thinking Robert's answer was a very poor attempt at humor, Cora had laughed nervously.

No one else at the table had.

Before sending her twenty-four year old son to bed without his dinner, an aghast Lady Grantham had demanded to know where he had heard his summary of their courtship.

It was hard to imagine the family of jackals where Violet Crawley could have been considered the pleasant sister. Susan's mother had never forgiven Robert's father for passing her over. Having missed out on her chance at being Countess of Grantham, the woman had never missed a chance to poison her sister's children against their father.

Rose, thank heavens, had inherited her grandmother's extraordinary beauty but her father's temperament.

Robert said the word so – for him - venomously. "How he _courted_ her."

It was hardly an exceptional story – except perhaps in the regard that it had happened to his mother.

It was almost the same beginning as that of Cora and Robert.

Two people met. One had almost immediately fallen hopelessly in love. The other had not.

"Cora, she didn't want to marry him."

Hearing the pain in her husband's voice, seeing the shamed way that he looked down, Cora wondered what she had been thinking insisting on bringing up the topic.

"He saw her and he wanted her so he took her. He made an arrangement with her father."

That was the way life had worked for many women of his mother's generation and before. Even Cora's generation. To marry for love was uncommon. Arranged marriages were more the standard. Cora had been lucky. Born to incredible wealth, she had been able to write her own life story to a certain extent.

Even now, it was hardly unheard of. As in so many other things, their girls had been privileged. Time and money had allowed them choices. Still, the truth was life hadn't entirely changed for women.

Women might now be able to hold property in their own right, but their eldest daughter would never inherit the title Countess of Grantham. At best Mary could try to petition to be given the title Dowager Countess of Grantham when her son one day - hopefully in the far distant future – inherited the title of Earl of Grantham.

"Cora, he _paid_ for her."

Money had changed hands to arrange the marriage of Robert's parents – and not in the usual manner.

Cora had been absolutely livid when she learned that her mother-in-law had been born the daughter of a baronet. Violet Crawley for all her pretension hadn't even been a Lady until she married Robert's father.

Cora had despised her mother-in-law in the early part of her marriage. The other woman had everything Cora desired – she was Countess of Grantham with a husband who _absolutely_ adored her and she didn't seem to appreciate it. Her father had set her up to be not merely a mistress, a paramour, but _the_ mistress of a great estate. The way she behaved, you would think he had given her to a chimney sweep for use as a climbing boy.

Her family had been so destitute that in London they lived in a house no bigger than the one the Dowager Countess lived in now. They hadn't even rooms enough for all the people living there. As a girl, the Dowager Countess had shared a bedroom with one of her sisters the way some of the younger servants shared bedrooms at Downton.

"Her father _sold_ her to him."

A leveraged business arrangement had gone wrong. When Robert's grandfather was unable to produce the cash money he owed, Robert's father had seized his opportunity. Robert's mother had been suggested as payment-in-kind.

To avoid the scandal and his complete financial ruin, Robert's grandfather had reluctantly agreed.

 _"Her own father ..."_

It was Cora's turn to look away – for wasn't that how she had gotten her husband? Hadn't his father done the same thing to him?

 _tbc_

A/N Thoughts? Opinions? Feelings?


	5. Chapter 5

A/N I stopped posting this one because I didn't have a beta and people seemed to take great issue with where it was going and I couldn't really figure out why – was the objection to the 'selling' or was it to the 'selling' of Violet specifically? Because it was simply a recycling of what happened between Cora & Robert.

I recently had someone ask quite nicely for a bit more of this so I pulled it back out and here it is. I haven't changed anything though so if you didn't like it before you aren't likely to like it any better now.

 _No Prince Charming_

 _Chapter 5_

It was Cora's turn to look away – for wasn't that how she had gotten her husband? Hadn't his father done the same thing to him? Somehow, even repeating the words, Robert didn't seem to make that connection.

Cora's mother had been after Robert's title, but it was Robert that a young Cora had been after.

During their courtship, Robert had been somewhat ambivalent about her. It wasn't until after they were married that Robert had fallen in love with her.

The difference in the outcome of their marriage and that of his parents was that Robert hadn't inherited his mother's stubbornness. Listening to the pain and the shame in her husband's voice, not for the first time, Cora cursed her mother-in-law for being so stubborn, so selfish. Why couldn't she have just given in for the sake of her children?

"Cora, she was coerced into marrying him."

Getting Robert's mother down the aisle had involved a lot of browbeating and from a conversation with Robert's father about the lack of a wedding photograph, Cora knew at least one actual beating – administered by Lady Grantham's father _not_ Robert's.

Still, Cora refused to believe the indomitable woman she knew had ever been defeated. "Robert, I'm not entirely sure I believe that."

"Believe what?"

"That your mother didn't want to marry your father."

Robert looked appalled, but Cora continued. "Robert, you can't trust the bitter words of your vindictive aunt! The notion may not have been Mama's originally, but surely the idea of getting to be Countess of Grantham – the title, the clothes, the parties, the houses – it would have been enough to turn any young girl's head!"

He refused to even consider the idea. "Cora, we both know that in Mama's mind for any idea to be a good one it had to originate with her."

"I realize that, but -"

"But nothing! You have no idea – no idea _at all_ of what you are speaking!"

Cora frowned. She had heard Robert's father's romanticized version of events and Robert had been given Susan's mother's no doubt equally colored rendition. She suspected the unvarnished truth fell somewhere in between.

Delicately, she tried to make a suggestion. "Robert, have you _ever_ stopped to consider your aunt's motives for telling you the things she did about your parents? About what your father did?"

"She was worried about Mama."

Cora found that hard to swallow and said as much.

"Cora, when your sister has been given as some kind of offering to appease a sea monster, it's not entirely unnatural to have concerns about her welfare."

"Robert -"

"- Cora, the man brought a seventeen year old girl and her sisters on a tour of a debtor's prison and showed her the _room_ that had been reserved for her family when they stopped being guests at Downton. He -"

Cora didn't see how it was fair to hold Robert's father accountable for that. It was Robert's grandfather who had put Mama in that situation. "- He showed her the reality of the situation she was about to be in."

Cora asked her husband. "Would it have been preferable to you for him to have simply washed his hands of your mother and her family?"

Robert wasn't listening. "Could you imagine Matthew doing something like that when Mary wouldn't accept his proposal?"

Cora countered. "I wonder, if your aunt had never told you any of those things, if you would still have come to view things the way you do?"

Certainly from the outside – and at least for a time from the inside - Cora's impression had been that her mother-in-law was the unreasonable one – the bully.

"Cora, I have eyes. I didn't need my aunt to tell me that something wasn't right about my parent's marriage."

Giving up on that tactic for the moment, less gently Cora pointed out. "Your grandfather wasn't the only one with his hand out."

"My aunt confessed as much. She admitted that as part of the bargain Papa promised to help marry off all of Mama's sisters to suitable matches."

Robert found fault in even that. "He recruited her own sisters against her!"

"That's not what I meant and you know it."

Robert's eyes narrowed, suspicious of where she was going. Cora didn't disappoint her husband.

"Mama was very well compensated for agreeing to marry your father."

"Cora, that is the most repulsive thing you have _ever_ said."

"Your mother negotiated her own dower and she certainly did not sell herself short."

"Don't be vulgar, Cora."

"What I am being is practical. The way your mother was when she agreed to marry your father."

Robert turned his head, but Cora had gone too far to simply let the matter drop.

"Your father lost a great deal of his fortune getting your grandfather out of debt and he settled a good portion of what was left on your mother."

Turning to again face her, he volleyed back. "Money which Papa then plundered with the help of our housekeeper when he ran out of his own!"

"That's not the point!" Cora dismissed his words. "A dower, a widow's pension, _that_ was the only money and property a woman could hold back then. Robert, by agreeing to the marriage Mama got out of her father's house. She got a husband who doted on her constantly. She -"

" _Doted!_ " Robert's voice rose several octaves in outrage.

"He gave in to _every one_ of your mother's demands.He had your grandmother moved out of the Dower House and into the Crawley House at your mother's insistence. He helped to marry off her two older sisters to respectable matches. He _even_ took in her baby sister to be raised in the nursery here at Downton instead of sending the girl back with her father."

Robert's grandfather hadn't put up much of a protest at the loss of the daughter that he and all of the rest of Mama's family blamed for her mother's death.

"Not many men would have been willing to take on that kind of baggage." Cora pointed out. "Keeping a child not their own."

Indeed, Robert's father hadn't been the only suitor in the fray. There was another wholly unbefitting young man – Cora couldn't even say gentleman, because the man was a commoner - vying for Mama's hand.

Like Cora's daughter, Sybil, and Robert's sister, Rosamund, before her, Mama had succeeded in running off with her inappropriate suitor, but unlike Rosamund, Mama had chosen to return to Downton rather than carryout with her elopement.

According to Robert's father, the extra baggage Mama sought to bring with her into the marriage had proved a sticking point. Her other suitor had balked at the idea whereas Papa had immediately capitulated as he had with every other ridiculous demand she had thrown at him.

The beating and the threats and the cajoling had left Mama as unmoved as the promise of dresses and houses had – but that willingness was in the end how Papa had finally won her over.

… Or at least that was what Papa had told Cora.

"Your father let Mama keep _her_ Sybil here with her at Downton."

Rather than acknowledge his father having been magnanimous, Robert countered. "And how long did that last?!"

It was Cora's turn to be appalled. "You can hardly hold your father at fault for that!"

Only a few years into his parent's marriage illness had wiped out the entire nursery.

Cora tried to get them back on track. "By marrying your father she got out of that wretched house full of those wretched people and she got a husband who absolutely adored her. She was given the house she lives in now and your father settled money enough on her that she would never have to be in that position again.

"Once your father passed she would be free to stay on at the Dower house or to take you and Rosamund to go to live wherever she wanted. She made sure that she would never _have_ to live under the thumb of any man again."

He looked aghast, but Cora didn't back down. "Robert, this is _your mother_ we are talking about. If she was entirely against it, I am sure she would have found some way to get out of the engagement. To put your father off."

Less harshly, she tried again.

Putting her hand over his, Cora voice softened. "I was madly in love with you and she nearly succeeded in putting me off."

"Cora, Mama was never entirely against you."

"Robert, your mother fought tooth and nail against me from the moment she learned of our engagement."

"Now that is an exaggeration."

"Robert, she brought another bride to the wedding."

"Oh." Robert winced. "I had hoped you hadn't noticed that."

It was long enough ago, Cora could _almost_ laugh about it, but actually getting to the altar with Robert had been the sort of endurance test that the ancient Greeks wrote epic poems about.

Still, Robert dismissed the notion. "She wasn't _entirely_ against you. After all, she did let you marry me."

"She _let_ me marry you?" Cora repeated.

"If Mama had been dead set against you, you wouldn't have stood a chance. She would have run you off."

That was precisely what Cora meant – only in regards to her father-in-law. She was trying to make that point to her husband, but she lost her train of thought as he continued on.

"She _was_ going to run you off. Mama had her plan in place to sink you before you even stepped foot in this house. She put it in motion the very day she met you. Ruining your wedding dress, the other bride, and _everything_ else Mama did was merely window dressing to keep poor Mrs. Hughes busy running around putting out little fires so she wouldn't have time to think and anticipate the real coup de grace."

One of Cora's biggest regrets from her early years as Countess of Grantham was that when the time came to divvy up the servants between the Abbey and the Dower House, Cora had bet on the wrong horse. She had passed on Mrs. Hughes and selected Mrs. Butte as housekeeper for Downton.

"To this day, I don't think you realize how close she was to running you off despite your feelings for me."

Cora knew exactly how close her mother-in-law had been to succeeding in getting rid of her and stopping the wedding … but Robert didn't – he couldn't possibly.

Cora's mother had taken the blame for the reprehensible thing an angry Cora had done after being slighted by her future mother-in-law while staying at Downton before the wedding. Only Mama knew the truth and she hadn't told Robert or Papa. If she had, the wedding wouldn't have gone off.

All these years later, Cora had still never confessed the truth to her husband.

Robert had to be referring to something else.

Her husband did not elaborate and lesson learned, an entirely uncurious Cora didn't ask.

"The only reason Mama didn't was because I asked her not to."

Robert was back to being maudlin. "I don't know that I've ever disappointed my mother as much as when I told her that I _wanted_ to marry you."

"Because I was American."

"Because I was marrying you for your money."

It was hardly a secret even then, but it never stopped stinging to hear it.

"She told me not to marry you just to keep a roof over my family's head. She worried I would regret it someday if I met someone that I -" Momentarily faltering, Robert looked down. " - Cora, she all but begged me not to marry you.

"Mama stayed with my father all those years so that someday her son could be the Earl of Grantham. I couldn't turn up my nose at her sacrifice. And ..." His tone sounding slightly tinged with embarrassment, Robert admitted. "... if I was going to be Earl of Grantham, I didn't want it to be one of those empty, landless titles."

Robert looked lost in the memory as he continued. "I told her I was marrying for love. My love of Downton. I told her that this house and these lands, they meant too much to me. I couldn't bear to see it all go."

 _tbc_


	6. Chapter 6

_No Prince Charming_

 _Chapter 6_

Eventually Robert broke the silence that had fallen between them.

"Did you see the way Mama's eyes lit up? The way she came alive when she was looking at that fan and talking about how she met Prince Kuragin?"

Cora had. It was the way – even unto the end - Robert's father always lit up when looking at or talking about his wife.

"Mama never looks like that when talking about Papa."

"Robert, your mother did love your father."

"No, Cora, she didn't." Robert insisted.

"She did. I am sure of it."

Sounding exasperated, Robert questioned her. "Why do you keep saying that?"

"Because I think that she did. She must have ..."

"Why is it so important to you that she did?"

Because if she didn't that would be terribly sad.

"Because I do believe it. Truly, I do ..."

Cora struggle to put to words the reasons.

"She never remarried."

Two years and a day after Papa's passing, just at the point where Mama could have respectfully ended her period of mourning and begun receiving suitors, with two dukes and the widower Marquess of Flintshire waiting downstairs, Cora had walked into her mother-in-law's bedroom at the Dower House to find Mama seated at her dressing table, the striking red and silver hair that Papa had so adored carpeting the floor around her feet.

Cora would never forget her horror and confusion at what Mama had done. She practically looked like one of those novices entering a religious order. The hair that had once fallen to her waist had been cut so short it barely cleared her shoulders. It had taken a decade for her hair to grow back to any where near its previous length.

Cora said it and she kept saying it because she refused to not believe it.

Robert again scoffed at the idea. "Cora, my father wasn't a hard act to follow. He was one not worth repeating."

Cora sighed and frowned as she thought back to a time before that - the first time his mother, the now Dowager Countess had come back to the Abbey for dinner – or rather the first time she had _agreed_ to come to dinner after Robert's father's passing.

Nervous and needing everything to be absolutely perfect, Cora had been in the library with Robert awaiting her arrival. Changing her mind about the ostentatiousness of a particular piece of jewelry given their mourning attire, Cora had returned to her new rooms.

Knowing that Robert was downstairs, seeing the light spilling out from under the door to his dressing room, thinking his new valet had forgotten to put out the lamp, Cora had started to open the door.

She stopped as through the crack in the door she spied Robert's mother sitting on what had been her husband's bed with such a forlorn expression.

Panicking, not knowing what else to do, an unobserved Cora had retreated leaving her mother-in-law alone with her grief, but with her dignity intact.

Cora's relationship with her mother-in-law had improved somewhat through the decades, but even now Cora wasn't sure how else she should have handled that moment.

Shortly after, Carson had arrived in the library to make the other Lady Grantham's excuses for standing them up.

Cora was left with the same dilemma now as she had been that night when faced with Robert's anger at what he perceived as his mother's attempt to snub his wife - how to relay that incident without making herself seem a complete cad?

Before she could find a way, Robert was carrying on.

Shaking his head, Robert disagreed with her words. "No, my father was something of a monster. She couldn't have ever loved him. So no, I won't begrudge my mother whatever fleeting moments of happiness she did manage to find with whomever she managed to find them."

Robert turned to her for confirmation. "I know you only knew him for a short time, but surely you realized what a monster he was?"

Cora hesitated.

Upon meeting Robert's parents, Cora had found them to be complete contrasts.

Robert's mother had wavered between disapproving and openly hostile depending upon the moment whereas Robert's father had been pleasant, witty, charming and most of all welcoming.

She knew it wasn't her, but rather her money that the Earl was after, but unlike his wife, he at least was gracious about it.

So naturally, thinking Mama a bully who treated Papa horribly, Cora had at first allied herself with her father-in-law.

For the longest time, Cora couldn't understand why _everyone_ always seemed so willing to bend over backwards to give Mama her way in everything. It had taken time for Cora to realize that that was

some small attempt at consolation for Mama having to be the one to put up with Papa on a permanent basis.

Eventually Papa had shown his true colors and Cora had realized it was self preservation. For every inch her mother-in-law gave, Papa wanted a foot. Realizing her folly, Cora had fallen in line.

When Cora took too long to reply, her husband turned on her. "Cora, this may come as something of a shock to learn, but Papa didn't actually like you. Heonly pretended to like you because he was after your money."

Cora rolled her eyes. "I had managed to piece that together thank you very much."

Even after she acquiesced, Robert wasn't willing to let it drop.

"Papa was planning to fleece you out of your fortune. _That_ is why he set up the entail and he had you sign over all of your money _to the estate_ immediately following our marriage instead of _to me_. So that when Mama had finally had enough of you and sent you packing the money would stay."

Cora surprised him by admitting … "I know. Marmaduke warned me at breakfast a few mornings before the wedding. He told me not to sign the papers Papa had had drawn up. He told me I should run because a fool and her money were soon parted. When I was still there at breakfast the next morning, he even made sure to clarify, wanting to be certain I realized that I was the fool and I was about to lose all of my fortune."

"And you went through with it anyway?" Looking at her and shaking his head, Robert sighed. "Mama was right about you. You really were a ninny."

Cora smiled. "What I was was madly in love."

Reaching out to cup her cheek, midway, Robert stopped himself. His eyes widened in alarm.

"I had no idea of the full extent of his plan. Papa didn't share his plan with me or Mama. I just thought I was marrying you to save the estate."

Cora smiled at him reassuringly. "I know. Marmaduke told me that too. Your sister's husband was such a terrible blabbermouth."

"He really was." Robert smiled sadly a moment at the memory of his sister's late husband before returning to the topic of his father.

"That's why Papa kept putting you in the firing line with Mama. He was trying to get her to hurry along with getting rid of you.

"What he wasn't counting on was Mama tolerating you so well."

" _Well?_ Cora balked.

"For Mama _that_ was well."

As if it made Mama's behavior somehow more excusable, Robert pointed out. "The way Mama behaved towards you was _nothing_ compared to the way my grandmother treated her."

Cora knew that Robert's grandmother had been so against his parents marriage that she refused to even attend.

"And the only reason Mama didn't get rid of you was because she realized Papa expected – no wanted her to!"

How exhausting life must have been for Robert's mother and father – feeling the need to constantly anticipate what the other would do and react accordingly. How exhausting it must have been not just for them but for everyone involved.

Robert had said the words to spread around the sting, but Cora had made her peace with Papa long ago.

During the Earl's lengthy illness, to give the soon-to-be Dowager Countess a respite, Cora had spent an hour or two most days at his bedside. While continually checking the clock, counting down the minutes to his wife's return, the Earl, a wonderful conversationalist, would spend the time regaling Cora with the most entertaining tales of his life - of all the interesting places he had visited in his travels and all the fascinating people he had met – including the one person who had held his fascination for thirty odd years.

While Cora had made her peace with Papa, Robert never had and she suspected he never would.

Still looking to her for assurance, Robert said it again. "You did realize it, didn't you? What a monster he could be?"

She wouldn't try to dispute the truth to her husband's words, but she also knew a different truth. She wouldn't say she knew Robert's father better than he did – just differently.

Or maybe it was just that Cora was a bit more sympathetic toward her late father-in-law. Cora – who also had married for love to someone not in love with her – couldn't help but see a different side.

As the wedding had gotten closer, in an effort to calm her nerves, Lord Grantham had had a conversation with Cora about how fortunate the two of them were to have had the opportunity to marry for love. Not knowing any better, she had asked Lord Grantham if it had taken long for him to get his wife to fall in love with him.

The expression on his face ...

 _That_ look more than any of the many, _many_ ways in which Lady Grantham had tried to sabotage the wedding had almost succeeded in frightening Cora off from marrying Robert.

The idea of unrequited love which had once seemed so romantic suddenly hadn't seemed so romantic anymore.

The prospect of a _lifetime_ of unrequited love had devastated Cora, but Lord Grantham, had assured her that Lord Downton wasn't as unyielding as his mother. He had assured Cora that she was young and pretty and pleasant. The – as Robert had said usually astute – Lord Grantham had assured her that it wouldn't take long for love to blossom on Lord Downton's part. _Mountains,_ he said, weren't as unyielding as his wife.

At least to Cora's mind, if Papa behaved poorly at times Mama was at least partially responsible having driven him to it by continually withholding her love and affection from her husband in a refusal to – as Robert so aptly put it - let herself be bested.

But even that wasn't entirely fair or true.

With a noncommittal murmur, Cora laid her hand on her husband's chest.

Watching Robert reach for the light, Cora reminded him. "Don't you want to finish your book?"

"No. Not tonight. I'm very tired."

If she had any doubts before that he hadn't been telling the whole truth they were gone.

They had been married now for thirty years but there were clearly some things from the past still too painful to talk about.

As her husband turned to face in the other direction, Cora moved to be laying against him. She put one arm around his middle and with the other gently ran her fingers through his hair.

Having heard far too much for one night, she wasn't trying to press him for more information. She was just trying to comfort him, but sometime later just as she was herself about to fall asleep, he again spoke.

"Papa took Rosamund away … to punish Mama."

 _tbc_

A/N If you are reading kindly take a moment and review.


	7. Chapter 7

_No Prince Charming_

 _Chapter 7_

"Papa took Rosamund away … to punish Mama."

Cora had been on the edge of slumber, but her husband's softly spoken words shook off any chance of sleep.

Cora started to reach to turn back on the light.

"Don't."

Cora left the light off as he bade. Shifting back to a sitting position, she waited.

"Mama wouldn't speak to him so Papa took Rosamund away from her. He found a boarding school willing to take her – not an easy feat back then given her age. He had the admission forms put with Mama's mail. No doubt, he expected her to come at him in a rage. To finally break her silence."

The advantage of little girls over sons – besides getting to dress them so prettily – was that you didn't have to send them away for schooling.

"She called his bluff. The following morning he found the application with his mail. Mama had filled out everything except his signature. After tea when we took a carriage ride through the village she began talking the idea up to Rosamund. How exciting it would be to go to school with other girls instead of having lessons with a governess."

Robert let out a long breath. "Not getting the response he had hoped for, Papa upped the ante. Before sending off the application, he ticked off the little box to say that Rosamund would be staying for summers and holidays."

"How far did they take it?"

"They got as far as dropping Rosamund off at the school."

"And then your mother balked?"

"No. Papa seldom won at the game of one upping Mama. Maybe when they were first married, when she was young and inexperienced, but not in their later years. He was convinced though that this time he had. When the trunks were brought out to be loaded on to the carriage to go to the train, he tried picking one up himself to prove that it was empty. When it wasn't, he claimed Mama had unfairly put Nanny to a lot of work packing what she was just going to unpack.

"He was _so_ smug on the train. Carson had gone to him that morning – tried to talk him out of it."

"Our Carson? Or Mr. Carson?" Cora asked.

"Our Carson. Papa was taunting Mama about it trying to get a response out of her."

 _"You won't consent to speak to me, but you send your creature to plead on your behalf? He asked me this morning if I was sure I wanted to be doing this. He asked if I wouldn't consider a change of heart. He told me - 'Little girls shouldn't be parted from their mothers. A family should remain together.'"_

"I know Mama had Papa well broken down by the time you met him, but it wasn't always that way, Cora. He kept needling her trying to get a response. I don't think he quite realized yet that if Mama was so angry that she wouldn't speak to you, you were better off not hearing what she would say to you. Or maybe at that point, he just didn't care as long as she was speaking to him again."

 _"You won't speak to me but you'll send Charlie to intercede on your behalf? That boy thinks you can do no wrong. I should have enlightened him on why it is you won't speak to me. Do you think he would still think so highly of you after that?"_

"Mama didn't respond. She didn't say a word. Papa had been so sure that this time he would win, but you could tell he was getting anxious as they got closer. Mama wasn't. Just morose. Poor Rosamund just lay there pretending to be asleep. She had her head on Mama's lap and Mama just sat there stroking her head as you would a cat."

Cora listened rapt.

"Rosamund was a late admission so the Headmistress came out to the deserted courtyard to personally greet them. It wasn't until Mama kissed Rosamund outside the school and sent her in with her little case that Papa appreciated that he had no idea what was going on. Watching Rosamund go into the school Papa finally realized that Mama was not going to call his bluff.

"When a man came and tried to take a trunk down off the carriage, Mama stopped him. She told him that neither of the two trunks were Rosamund's."

Robert's lip curled slightly. "At last Papa began to grasp the situation."

 _"Surely you do realize that I left instructions with the school that they are not to release Rosamund to you without my being present. If you leave me you will never see your children again."_

"Papa finally got his wish. Mama was speaking to him again, but ..."

 _"As it stands I won't see them anyway so where is the difference?"_

"... I don't think he cared for what she had to say."

 _"You've overplayed your hand. That's the flaw in going to that particular well too often. If you are going to threaten to take the children away, you do have to eventually follow through or you will look weak - but once you have taken the children away you have lost whatever leverage you once held."_

"Papa balked. He said he was going back in to get Rosamund. Mama told him not to. She said Rosamund would be better off being raised by strangers than by the two of them."

 _"That house, this family has never been a good place to raise children. Children should not be exposed to us."_

 _"You were the one that insisted upon having them! I certainly never wanted you to have any children."_

Cora winced. Poor Rosamund. That wasn't something any child should ever have to hear.

"How old was your mother when she fell and broke her hip?"

"Old enough to know that one of her sisters had pushed her, but young enough that she could never recall which." Robert answered.

Compared to Mama and her sisters, Mary and Edith _were_ like the sisters in Little Women. Say what you would about the spiteful things the Crawley girls did to each other - it never amounted to something anyone could hang for.

Upon meeting Robert's mother, Cora hadn't realized that the Lady Grantham's use of a walking stick was not a recent development. It was only later that Cora had discovered that Robert's father had knowingly - willfully even - married a cripple.

She could hear the grimace in Robert's next words. "Mama's hip was never actually broken. It was only fractured. Clarkson managed to get a film of it when the hospital got that new machine a few years ago. Her leg was, as we of course knew, broken, but her hip only fractured in the fall."

"How did Dr. Clarkson get your mother to agree to that?" Cora wondered aloud. "To letting him take an x-ray?"

"He didn't. He just tricked her into standing in front of the machine. That's all there was to it."

"How did your mother take the news?"

"She doesn't know. I told Clarkson not to tell her. I didn't see a point. Why dredge up the past when Papa is no longer around for her to tell him I told you so." Robert sighed. "All those years of them arguing and it wasn't even broken."

Cora doubted that news would have made a difference to Robert's father. He had always made it quite clear that he felt that the risks of childbirth to his wife's health outweighed any possible benefit.

Robert's mother on the other hand, had felt that no risk was too great to ensure her husband's brother and his wife never inherited the title of Earl and Countess of Grantham.

"Papa went on to expand upon why he never wanted us, but ..."

 _"Both your mother and one of your sisters died in childbirth. My -"_

Their darling Sybil had only been the latest in a long line of women to have lost their life in childbirth.

" _..._ Mama had had enough. She interrupted him."

 _"- You didn't want to have children - how fortunate then that we never had any together."_

Cora gasped, but Robert, continuing on, didn't seem to take notice.

 _"_ Papa's face lost all expression. He turned to look in the direction Rosamund had disappeared. It took him a moment to actually respond. Turning back to Mama, he asked her."

 _"Is that true?"_

"Mama wouldn't answer."

 _"It's not! You're lying! I know you're lying. That damned foreigner was the first. That bloody Russian! I know he was!"_

 _"It doesn't matter if it's true or not. All that matters is that I agree to put it in writing."_

 _"What?"_

 _"I've spoken to Patrick."_

 _"My brother, Patrick?"_

 _"If I will put that in writing, Patrick has agreed to make sure I get to keep the children."_

Cora couldn't help herself. She interrupted. "Oh my god! Poor Rosamund! To have heard all that!"

"Oh she didn't hear any of it. As I said, she was already inside the building. The matron offered Mama and Papa a tour of the school, but Mama didn't want to go in. She wanted to say her goodbyes outside."

"Then who told you what was said? It was Susan's mother wasn't it?"

Talk about an awful, _awful_ woman!

"No. No one told me. I overheard them."

"You?" Cora didn't understand.

"Mama told me to wait in the carriage, but I sneaked out while they were saying goodbye to Rosamund. Mama's back was to the carriage. She didn't know I had disobeyed her by leaving it."

Cora questioned him. "But why were you even in the carriage?"

"I was too young for Eton to take me yet, but the school for Rosamund was very near to the one Papa found that would."

"He was taking you away too?!" Cora exclaimed. Robert hadn't mentioned that part.

 _tbc_

A/N As always reviews are greatly appreciated.


	8. Chapter 8

_No Prince Charming_

 _Chapter 8_

Robert continued on with the story. "Papa said that she shouldn't believe Uncle Patrick."

 _"And you believe him?! Because that is not a promise he can or will keep!"_

 _"Tell that to his shrew of a wife."_

 _"You would strip your son of his inheritance?"_

 _"I have to. I can't stay. After London and now this - I couldn't stand to be with you a moment longer."_

 _"If you leave me, you would leave with exactly what you brought to this marriage – nothing. Even if you did keep the children – an event which I would never allow to happen - what would you do? Two children to feed and house, but no money and no skills."_

 _"That's where you are wrong, my Lord. I may not have had any marketable skills before I married you but I have since learned a skill."_

"I could tell by his expression that Papa had no idea to what she was referring." Robert's voice was stiff. Cora could hear the frown in it. "At the time neither did I."

 _"What skill?"_

 _"If it came to it, I could peddle myself on the streets of Yorkshire. What would one of your tenant farmers pay to live like an Earl for an evening?"_

Cora gasped. Her thoughts couldn't help but go to Ethyl and the absolute lividness of Robert's response to her.

"Papa was so angry, he was again rendered speechless – momentarily at least."

 _"You wouldn't!"_

 _"You'll finally have what you wanted."_

 _"What I wanted?"_

 _"For the children to know that they have a whore for a mother. Isn't that what you wanted when you brought our son to the London house?"_

 _"What I wanted was for you to stop this madness! To come to your senses and put an end to it of your own volition this time!"_

 _"Why did you have to involve the children? Why did you bring Robert to London? And this with Rosamund? Why must you always involve the children?!"_

 _"What else am I to do to get your attention? Take away the parties? Your horse? You're not vexed by those things."_

"Mama just shook her head at him."

" _I can't put up with you any longer."_

 _"You can't put up with me? I've already taken you back once. How many more times do you expect me to do it?"_

 _"I don't."_

 _"This wasn't the first time! This wasn't even the first time since St. Petersburg!"_

 _"I don't expect you to take me back. I am not returning to Downton with you."_

 _"I'm not the one in the wrong here. You do realize that?"_

 _"Why must you always be watching me? You needn't have known. I was discreet. But you never take your eyes off of me!"_

 _"Is that supposed to make it better? Is it suppose to be acceptable for my wife to be a harlot so long as the world doesn't know?"_

 _"Why shouldn't the world know? Why shouldn't our children know? After all, it's the truth. It's what I am - a whore. You bought and paid for me."_

 _"Stop it!"_

 _"I just happen to be a better dressed, very expensive wh-"_

Papa was yelling and pleading with her at the same time.

 _"- Stop saying that word!"_

 _"I don't imagine it would really be all that different. You paid a lump sum up front – my dower. They will pay by the night."_

 _"Never!"_

 _"You're right. I doubt it would come to that. I don't think the children and I will end up on the streets starving. I am quite certain I would be able to find a patron."_

 _"I won't give you up! I won't let another man have you! They may get their stolen little bits and pieces, but I won't let them take all of you!"_

"He stormed into the school and retrieved Rosamund. He came out carrying her under one arm like a sack of potatoes, her suitcase in the other. He dropped the case, but he still had Rosamund under his arm when he tried to grab Mama with his other hand and bring her back to the carriage. She wouldn't go. He finally ended up putting Rosamund in the carriage and going back for Mama. Cora, my father _never_ raised a hand to my mother, but when she still wouldn't go, he tried to pick her up - to carry her. She struck him."

 _"No! Bring her back inside!"_

 _"Get in the carriage. We're going home!"_

 _"No! Leave Rosamund here at the school!"_

 _"No! We are all going home!"_

 _"No! We are not! You have to leave her here because I am not going back with you! I cannot bear to live with you anymore. I won't."_

 _"You don't mean it."_

 _"Oh but I do! I do mean it!"_

" _You have to come back!_ _Rosamund isn't staying here. You won't abandon your children."_

Then Mama dropped her bombshell – or what she thought would be a bombshell.

 _"I already have! In Russia. I didn't miss the royal wedding because I slipped on the ice getting into my carriage."_

 _"You did! I saw the bruises."_

 _"I missed it because it was the most advantageous time to depart. As a member of the prince's royal household you would be so busy with the ceremony you wouldn't notice my absence."_

 _"You changed your mind. You came back."_

 _"No! I did not. I came back but not of my own volition! The bruises were from my lover's wife pulling me out of the carriage I was leaving in and throwing me into hers to bring me back to you!"_

Cora's mouth fell open, but not wanting to break the momentum of her husband's storytelling, she said nothing.

"Snarling, Papa stopped pretending."

 _"Who do you think warned the Princess? Do you really think your maid – the maid whose salary I pay – would have gone to the Princess Irina if I hadn't instructed her to?"_

"Mama was devastated. She cried out."

 _"Why must you thwart my every chance of happiness?"_

 _"Because without you I have no chance of happiness! You are all that I want! You are all that I have ever wanted! Why can't I have you?! What do those other men give you that I haven't? Tell me!"_

 _"A Hobson's choice!"_

"There was a bench behind them in the empty courtyard. Mama sat on it. Papa sat next to her.

"Neither said anything for a time. They both looked so tired. So defeated.

"Finally Mama spoke. She said it again."

 _"I am not going back to Downton with you."_

 _"_ Desperate, Papa clung to her last few words as his only hope."

 _"Would you go back to Downton without me?"_

 _"_ Mama had led him right to where she wanted him."

" _Look in the trunks."_

Papa shook his head. He wouldn't look so Mama told him what was in it.

 _"The trunks are yours. This morning I had Charlie pack your things. A winter and a summer wardrobe. You go or I go."_

 _"Go where?"_

 _"Away."_

 _"Away to where?"_

 _"I don't know nor do I care! Either you go away traveling on business and I go back to Downton with the children or you go back to Downton and I do not."_

Rather than be properly horrified and scandalized, Robert almost sounded proud of his mother.

 _"Where would you go?"_

 _"_ Papa sounded frightened as he questioned her. Mama was just ... full up. She had had enough of him."

 _"Again, I don't know nor do I care. Anywhere where you are not!"_

 _"But if I go you will stay? If I go, you give me your word that you won't leave Downton?"  
_

 _"What good is my word? What good has it ever been?"_

 _"Give me your word!"_

 _"_ Papa pleaded with her. He feared – no, he _knew_ that if she left he would never see her again. Mama just sounded exhausted as she gave in and agreed to go back to Downton."

 _"I won't leave as long as you stay away."_

 _"For how long?"_

 _"I don't know. Until I can stand to look at you again."_

"We left Papa there in France at Rosamund's school with his summer and his winter wardrobes and we went back to the train station. Back to Downton."

Cora couldn't believe it. Only her mother-in-law could twist things so that her infidelity could result in her husband being banished from his ancestral home.

 _tbc_

A/N Reviews are greatly appreciated.


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